


Interrogation Tips

by car_yl



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26416516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/car_yl/pseuds/car_yl
Summary: Rick gets schooled on Harry's interrogation techniques at yet another family function.
Relationships: Harry Dresden/Karrin Murphy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	Interrogation Tips

**Author's Note:**

> Still just borrowing these characters and this universe from Jim Butcher. 
> 
> I don't know why Rick is my muse but he is and I've got at least one more of these knocking against my brain trying to get out.

Yet another Murphy family gathering. Another conversation with Dresden and Karrin. I’m hoping if I can keep Karrin in conversation and away from Lisa that we can keep them from going at each other. Now if I can just keep my own head in the game.

“So SI let you take Harry into interrogations with you?!”

“Yes Rick, since I was in charge of SI at the time, …” Karrin said putting just a little more emphasis on the ‘I’ and the ‘charge’. “Besides, Harry is an uniquely gifted interrogator, especially for folks with spooky leanings.”

“Spooky leanings?” You could almost hear my air quotes.

“People who believe in the occult or practitioners of magic,” Harry clarified.

“What?! Magic?! Is that why you listed yourself as a ‘wizard’ in your ads?” And this time I did the air quotes.

“Think of it as niche marketing if you like,” Harry said in a conversational tone. “If you believe in the occult and the practice of magic, who better to help solve your problems than a wizard? And if you’re desperate and you’ve tried everything else..” Harry shrugged and spread his hands wide in an open gesture.”

“And how does that qualify you to consult with CPD?” I asked, narrowing my eyes while thinking, “I knew he was a fake, and he’s about to admit it.”

“I was instructed in the history of magic, it’s rites and rituals, it’s laws and practices and Western European and American mythologies from the age of 10 until I was 19 by two experts in the field,” Was that a bite of bitterness I was hearing? Especially on the word experts? “I had some great ancient resources before my apartment was fire bombed.” Harry propped his elbows on his knees and leaned into me just an inch or two. “I also have a nodding acquaintance with Asian and African demonology. I’d stack my knowledge of arcane and eldritch lore against any FBI consultant you’d care to name.”

“I might just arrange that, just to call your bluff, Dresden,” I said, leaning forward a little myself.

Harry made a fist with his left hand and after only a micro-hesitation propped his chin on it. “Bring it on, Agent,” he said with a definite hint of challenge and just the barest echo of a growl while flicking his eyes up to meet mine for an instant.

Karrin flicked Dresden’s ear and said, “Down boy.” He reached up to rub the ear in question, glanced her way and drew back from me while raising both hands, palms forward.

I switched my glance toward Karrin and asked, “What other gifts does your man have?” putting just a little emphasis on ‘your man’. “Arcane knowledge isn’t all that unique.” I was keeping Dresden in my peripheral eye line. It’s my training, I told myself, to keep potential threats in sight. I knew Dresden wouldn’t get physical with me, not here anyway, but I was getting a vague threat vibe a second ago. “Nor is it all that helpful in interrogations, in my experience.”

“Heh,” Karrin scoffed, “Must not be applying it correctly. Besides, it’s the combination of gifts Harry brings to the table that make him so effective.

“Do tell,” I pushed. “Maybe he should write a manual.” I glanced in his direction giving him side-eye.

“Well, um, I could offer a tip or two,” he offered with a diffident tone.

“Like what?” one of Karrin’s brothers asked. A lot of Karrin’s family is law enforcement or law enforcement adjacent and several were now listening to our conversation.

“You really want to know?” Harry asked.

“Sure Harry, give us your take.” That was Karrin’s other brother.

“Okay. One of you shake my hand.” Kevin didn’t hesitate. He reached out and grabbed Harry’s right hand with a firm grip. He tried to keep it brief but Harry held on for a beat or two “Feel anything?” Harry asked.

“Yeah,” Kevin said looking puzzled. “Kind of a tingling, like a low grade electrical charge.” Then Harry let go.

“Practitioners expect to feel something like that when they come in contact with another practitioner. My friend, the assistant ME, tells me I carry around an unusually high static electric charge all the time, a kind of aura. Says it’s probably genetic. He thinks that’s why I’m hell on wheels with electronic gadgets. I short stuff out just by touching or being too near. Anyway, a suspect feels that they automatically know that I”m a practitioner, too. So now I can suggest..”

“Threaten,” Karrin interposed.

Dresden cleared his throat and continued, “eh-hem, that I can lay a curse on them if they don’t co-operate or confess, among other things.”

“Other things?” Another voice queried.

“Too many to list,” Harry answered. “It varies with the perp and what they’re into.”

“And how emotionally involved you are,” Karrin added.

“Huh?” Harry grunted, articulate as ever. He turned his head to face her.

“Didn’t you once threaten to turn one guy, who threatened me, into a … What was it again? Oh yes, a smoking crater?”

“How the hell… Who? How?” harry sputtered. Then he said, with certainty, “Rawlins.” The red suffusing his pale face fading as quickly as it had appeared.

“Rawlins,” Karrin confirmed with a huge grin.

“Yeah, well, no more Christmas cards for him,” Harry said glowering.

“How does that static thing help the rest of us?” Kevin asked.

“Well,” said Harry, turning back to the subject, “It can be faked and then you can make the kind of threats that would never be taken seriously in a court of law. No non-practitioner, non-believer would think they rose to the level of illegal intimidation.” A murmur rippled through the group of spectators we’d drawn. Even I had to give him that one. Maybe the guy was better at his job than his income indicated.

“Anything else?” Another voice prompted.

“Learn a few simple rituals like a circle. But there’s lots of books out there that can give you the basics. The best ones are to be found at Bock’s Books. Tell the owner I sent you. He’ll get you started out right. Just don’t expect a discount.” Harry replied with a wry twist of his lips.

“Is that is? Doesn’t sound like that much.” I almost sneered - almost.

“Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it,” Harry quipped.

“No, that’s not all,” Karrin said with some force and maybe a little heat. “But some things can’t be taught or duplicated.”

“Such as,..”

“How well he reads people. Some people are really good at it, some people aren’t.” I didn’t like the way she left that hanging. I really didn’t. It was like an implication.

“And?” Why couldn’t I just leave it alone?

“Physical attributes, like a deep voice, facial scars, and size,” Karrin continued.

“No suspect is gonna care about the size of his…”, I thought but I just said, “Size?!”

“Why do you think he slouches all the time, Rick? Harry knows his height is intimidating. So, he usually tries to down play it by slumping, and slouching and generally just wrecking his back.”

“Hey,” Harry protested, half heartedly.

“But sometimes,” Karrin went on, “it proves useful.”

“Like reaching stuff on the top shelf?” Harry asked. Karrin elbowed his ribs. “Ow,” he complained but not very strenuously.

“Really?” I asked, sarcasm flashing in my tone, “He’s intimidates by just standing up straight? How are you going to convince us of that?”

“Oh,” Karrin said, ‘I have video!” And she pulled a tablet out of her tote bag.

“And that’s my cue to go get another beer and check on Maggie. You want anything, love?

“Soda,” Karrin replied.

Why did that make me see red? The way he just dropped the endearment in there, like it was normal, natural, every day… And Karrin responding in the same way.

So our little group of spectators surrounded Karrin in order to see the screen, which was now playing a grainy, wavy video that had obviously been recorded on a hand held device from the other side of a two way glass.

Dresden came into the room. He stood in the middle of the room turning in a slow circle looking up and down the walls, around the floor and ceiling, and staring pointedly through the glass toward the device. He drew a circle on the floor with chalk. Then he schlumped down in one of the chairs and waited for Karrin and the suspect to come in. He sat there legs splayed, head down, in that long black coat of his looking like an adult in a kids chair, flicking his eyes up at Karrin from time to time while she went through the preliminaries. He stayed quiet while Karrin asked her questions until she gave him the nod. Then, I guess, it was his turn. 

He sat up, swiveled, leaned across the table resting on his elbows and said something the camera’s mike didn’t pick up. In fact, after Dresden started talking nothing on the audio portion was clear; all garbled. Dresden’s voice came over as a deep, not quite bass, rumble with no understandable words. The suspect and Karrin’s words were dropping in and out, lots of static and popping on the tape. After a few minutes of conversation Dresden pulled, I don’t know, a straight pin? out of his lapel and pricked his finger. He stood, stepping outside the circle he’d drawn, bent down and placed a single drop of blood on the floor and then all the sound was gone on the tape. Video still worked. 

The perp just watched him rise up and up from that squat. It’s a slow process to lift that much mass up that high. Guy’s 6’8”. But he was still slouching so he looked shorter, at first. He walked around the room ping ponging questions and answers for a while. Hands in his jeans pockets. Never meeting the suspect’s eyes but always turning his face toward the table where the subject sat. Then the perp said something that made Dresden stop and stand up straight. We watched as he stretched up to his full erect height. It looked like he’d gained 6 inches by doing so.

The perp’s eyes widened. We could all see it.

Dresden walked behind the perp’s chair. It’s was intimidating as hell just watching that guy look down on the top of the perp’s head. Bad enough when he’d been in front of the guy. Dresden came back into the perp’s eye line, grabbed the back of the chair he’d been sitting in and leaned toward the guy. The weasel wouldn’t look Harry in the face much less the eye. Harry’s foot scuffed across the circle. He walked around to the back of the perp’s chair again, grabbed either side of it and leaned down to say something directly into the guy’s ear, keeping his face towards Karrin the whole time. When Dresden stepped back Karrin handed the perp a pad of paper and a pen. Interview over. Confession obtained. He never raised his voice above a conversational tone or so much as touched the guy. I found myself wishing I could work that technique. Confessions are so much better for the public purse. 

I hate to admit it but if that video is any indication Dresden had been damn good at his job. Why did CPD ever stop calling him? Just because he advertised as a wizard? Were the powers that worried about a little embarrassment? Heck, if I liked him I’d try to get him on as an FBI consultant. If I remember correctly from when I had him checked out after that incident in the FBI building, he had quite an impressive closure rate. If I liked him. I don’t.

After the video ended Karrin turned the device off. I mean, powered it all the way down. Then I began to feel goosebumps forming on my exposed skin and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rising. The air in our immediate area seemed to have gotten a degree or three cooler and I felt someone behind me, looming. I realized the group had spread out from the chair. I realized that my arm was draped over the back of that chair, the chair Karrin was sitting in. I gave into the urge to look up, straight up, to the underside of Dresden’s chin. He couldn’t have been standing more than 6 inches behind me.

“Comfy there, Rick?” it felt like his words were falling like chips of ice and the tone had the same sound as that growl from the video.

At this point I also realized that my wife, Lisa, was glaring at me in a manner that did not bode well for a peaceful evening.

I don’t know why I did it, I had just seen on the video and had personally experienced and would now have to admit the size intimidation factor. But I tried to save just a fragment of my pride. “Jealous, Dresden?” I shot at him.

The noise Karrin made shredded that last fragment to atoms.

“Guess not,” Dresden said while handing her a Very frosty can of Coke.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes it's about what you leave out. I could have padded this so much more, but maybe those ideas will find another outlet. Hope someone enjoys this.


End file.
